Vael | 21 - Mastering Offer (£0)

jrace

New member
Summary: Will master your songs in exchange for promo, will bump thread at regular intervals when I have time to master new songs. Please read all of post for rules.
Ok a bit about my history, I used to run an online mastering company. I didn’t get enough work to go full time but it made a nice supplemental income as well as boosting my audio skills. I have 10 years experience working with audio, have mastered tracks for artists across multiple genres (many that have been released), used to charge £25 a track and this was my setup:-
Monitoring
K&H O300’s
Benchmark DAC1

Outboard
RME ADI-2
SSL Buss-Comp Clone

ITB
UAD,
Various other plugins


Now I’ve simplified my setup, I run completely ITB with my Benchmark DAC1 and Sennheiser HD600’s. I want to get into doing a little mastering again but realize that it’s hard to get a lot of credit with my “minimal setup”, however… I feel I can still do a decent job.
What I want is to build up a portfolio of masters with this new setup as proof that I can still operate on a “limited” setup.

I will post in this thread occasionally to offer mastering of one of your tracks for no monetary cost. In return I ask that you tell people who mastered your track e.g if you post it on Facebook (you don’t need to go out and start shouting it from the rooftops! Also you don’t have to put a “mastered by” every time you promote your track, just once is nice).
This will also cost you (applies to all accounts you are registered with):-
x1 Facebook like
x1 Soundcloud follow
x1 Youtube Subscribe
x1 Twitter follow

These are for my alias accounts. I’m asking for this because as well as building a portfolio I am in the later stages of finishing an album and am trying to give the following a little push leading up to release. I think it’s a fair trade off, liking a couple of accounts takes what a couple of minutes? compared to the 30-60 minutes it will take to master your song.
As well as my own promo for my music I will be posting more information on things like mixing and mastering on these accounts

Requirements
I don’t think posting tracks in here would be a great move, it could get pretty convoluted, instead please just PM me with an unmastered track that you want mastering. If you’ve had tracks mastered before you should be familiar with the format required:-

  • NO stereo buss processing (EQ, compression, limiting etc)
  • NO Dithering
  • Individual channel processing and buss processing is fine (e.g yes you can put compression on your drum buss)
  • Leave some headroom (bounce it out with between 3-6db of headroom and it should be fine)
  • If you have references for tracks you like the sound of then tell me
  • 16-bit ok / 24-bit preferred / 32-bit no
  • Sample rate 44KHz Preferred but higher is ok
  • Tails (leave a few seconds either side of the start and finish so you aren’t chopping anything valuable, like your reverb tails!)

Contact
In the PM put a link to the unmastered track from a site like Mediafire, dropbox etc. Tell me the info you need like references etc and tell me the name you used to like/follow the accounts mentioned before.
If I like a song to work with I will message back to let you know that it’s been picked and give a rough timeframe for delivery. I might not be able to reply to everyone’s PM though and can’t master every single track I get sent. If I don’t want to work with a particular track for whatever reason I will just leave it be, send a message to chase it up but don’t bombard my inbox with messages.

Limit
I’m operating x1 track per person because A. I want a broader portfolio, not showcasing the same artist over and over. & B. it gives everyone a fair chance. If for whatever reason I don’t get much demand though I will consider people I’ve already worked with (probably in exchange for similar promo favors)

Portfolio
These tracks will be used for portfolio so parts of them will get used for A/B comparisons, uploaded in this thread and possibly on my soundcloud. In all instances you can be credited or asked to remain anonymous. Also I point this out because obviously you don’t want to send tracks that are being considered by labels and then they see it has “leaked”. Before posting examples that includes your audio I will ALWAYS ask your permission first, I won’t just go ahead and upload it wherever without your knowledge.

I will post in this thread for the following reasons:-

  1. I am available to take on another track
  2. I have a new A/B demo to post of past work
  3. Answering questions

You should post in here if you have questions such as:-
“What if I have a reverb on my stereo buss and it’s critical to the sound?”
"What if I can only bounce at 32-bit?"
etc


This is NOT a thread for:-
“This doesn’t sound like a good trade”
“Oh so you just use headphones, how can you master with just headphones?”
“Next you’ll be telling us you just use CraKed waves plugins”

Guys this is a serious offer and for people who don’t have the money to go to any other mastering house it can be very useful and helpful. Not to mention the fact that I usually explain most of my process’ so it will provide additional educational value.

If you’ve made it this far, well done! I look forward to hearing your tracks, keep on rocking!
 
This does sound like a good trade. If your album is anything like that Aphotik track, it's gonna be sick!

Anyway, I'll be in touch once I'm ready to launch my label.
Still putting the final things in place, but I'll definitely be needing a solid mastering partner once we do. Paid, obviously (plus I don't do the socials).

-you mention 44.1 as the prefered sample rate. I get that.. can you make 48k/24 masters though?
-can you make stems-files (Page not found - Stems
 
Hi localspace, thankyou very much! So far the sound is a bastard hybrid of electronic and film-score, lots of orchestral but plenty of bass :)

That sounds good so as well as portfolio building we can use an early track as a demo for future work together.

I can certainly work with 48k/24 and export to that (if a high def release is what you're thinking of) just remind me again at the time!

I think you meant do I accept stem files? Stem mastering is something I used to offer (at a higher price) and while I would work with stems again it isn't what I can offer for a freebie simply because of the time and work involved; but as I said I'm more than happy to work that way in the future if you are happy with the quality of the first master.
 
No, stems is also an open file format that being pushed by NI.
Stems

I think it's pretty clever and might go somewhere.. The Traktor integration looks real clever.
If it does I want to be all over it. My distro says they can place them on Beatport, Juno, etc..
Judging from what I can find, they seem to be .mp4 files so I suspect they're 48khz/24bit as well... They should be!

As far as 'traditional' stem mastering goes: I aim to get my mixes to a place where that's not needed ;)
 
I honestly have never heard of it before but after watching a couple of videos it looks very interesting and opens up a lot for creative use with DJ'ing.

As I've only just heard of it I have no experience with it but would be happy to look into it more, seems like an interesting way to work :)
 


First Mastering Example from this is now up. As well as hearing what has been done I have given a full description of what I did in the mastering session to get that sound. Read the youtube description for all the info and subscribe if you want to read more briefs from future mastering sessions.

Guys that means I am now free to take on another track, the rules are the same as before (but I would prefer a genre other than DNB to add to the portfolio!)

Mastering Example (Drum & Bass) by Vael | 21 (formerly Outbound) | Free Listening on SoundCloud
 
Sounds great! I won't try to defend ITB Mastering or argue for it because this is the perfect opportunity to let the results do the talking :)
 
I just dropped you a sendspace link... The track is already quite well balanced... so I will see how it compares to my mastered version :p

cheers for the effort either way :)
 
Received! Oh I forgot to add, if you could give the social media accounts a like to restore the music karma balance, if I completely butcher it you are welcome to unlike again! ;)
 
Hi laurend, I run Logic X and apple still only supports a max bit-depth of 24bit (I know crazy right!) it means that any 32-bit audio I receive has to be down-sampled to 24-bit. For that reason I can accept 32-bit if there is no other option but we don't gain anything from it as it end up 24-bit anyway!
 
@jrace,
The domain name in your signature is for sale. Do you only rely on SoundCloud for your business now ?
 
@laurend

The two links in my sig are both dead, they are links to websites I used to own and operate for my business. I have tried to remove both time and time again only to be greeted with a less than helpful "invalid file" message (which many here have received before) so until that bug gets sorted I'm stuck with two broken links in my sig which knocks credibility off me, not that i'm bitter about it ;)

Yes I operate entirely through social media links right now. Keeping overhead to a minimum & simplified. If I eventually get enough work to justify the costs and time in maintaining a dedicated website then I will go down that route again then
 
Ok I’ve decided to drop my price. I’ll be transparent about it. It’s through lack of work. This is no bad thing though, the people I’ve worked with are extremely happy with the service I’ve provided for them but I’m simply not getting anything through from any new guys. So this means that the quality is there (they’ve even told me that I should be charging way more).
I simply want to work, I love working with audio and if it means working for a little less (maybe being taken less seriously) but actually getting the work then I’ll keep dropping the price until something clicks
slight_smile.png

For the record the free mastering still applies to anyone who hasn’t had a chance to send in a track yet for portfolio building so make sure to get on that. As usual any questions feel free to PM
 
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